Yes, you’re definitely correct about this being a respected breeding program. Breeding a Morgan that can do very well in reined cowhorse competition against QHs is a huge accomplishment on its own, and Westwind Otto is far from the only quality horse bred by Mr Blatt.
It’s somewhat ironic that in his search for the best Morgan western working horses, he took in some very well bred horses from breeders who were in distress.
I do think that “with (some) older people, it’s hard.” DH and I are going through this with his parents. Thank heavens that my very difficult FIL is mostly accepting help. But getting them out of their house in rural Vermont will probably not be easy when the time comes.
Fairly certain of how this works in property, and I think the legal principles will be the same regardless of the loan / lien.
Let’s say that Party A has a mortgage that has fallen well behind, and Party B says “I’ll send money to the mortgage company to catch that up for you,” and does. The mortgage stays with Party A. So does title to the property. Party B has just given a financial gift to Party A.
If Party A ends up in a foreclosure process, and Party B says “I’ll pay off whatever you owe to clear the foreclosure”, Party B is giving another gift to Party A. Party A keeps both the mortgage – now reset to current – and the title to the property.
With property mortgages, the lender doesn’t care who transferred the money to pay up the balance. (Which by the time of foreclosure would include penalties, fees and accumulating interest – not paying your mortgage is expensive.) Nothing changes about the legal paperwork for mortgage responsibility and title to the property.
The county recording the deed title takes no notice, either. It is still Party A’s mortgage and property, all filed in the legal database.
My guess is that the same legal principles apply with liens. Some of these groups, rescues, individual prospective buyers, etc., offering to pay off the lien, will be giving the current owner a gift of lifting the lien. Current owner is still the owner. Lienholder receives that one-time payment. Horses still on property, monthly bill still due.
Once a property mortgage reaches the point of foreclosure, the legal situation becomes complicated for the lender as well as the owner. There are many regulations to follow. Title to the property stays with the owner, but now has a ‘cloud’ on it. Selling it is complicated (although not always impossible).
But while in this process, penalties, fees and accruing interest can still be added to the balance owed, consistent with certain rules. The court may have to agree.
Property owners in foreclosure can sell their property to clear up the mortgage and avoid actual completion of foreclosure. But it has to be done as part of the foreclosure process, and a lot of final decisions are with the lender and, at times, the court. I’m guessing that much of this is the same for an agister’s lien. (Side note that I’m using terms such as ‘foreclosure’ improperly re the legal meaning, but consistent with the way most people understand ‘foreclosure’.)
At this point with a lien against the horses, my guess is that they can’t be sold in a private transaction. Unless a deal is reached with the lienholder and the court that is administering the agister’s lien. Any sale will have to meet certain legal regulations and be approved by the court. That would be consistent with foreclosure. It could happen, but nothing is easy in this process.
Once a lender / holder of outstanding bill gets to the point that they are filing liens / foreclosures, the court kind of takes over as if it is the true owner, for all practical purposes. The court / judge makes many decisions, not the owner or the lender / bill holder. The goal of the court is to be as fair to everyone as possible. Sometimes people aren’t totally happy with fairness to the other side.
Also – clearly – the parties need an attorney to make sure that whatever they do, it works inside of the legal process, instead of creating an even bigger mess. Guessing, assuming, and thinking that the world should work as one thinks it should, are ways to incur great financial distress.
My guess re Westwind Morgans – Before the lien was filed – If the horse owner had approached Peterson with a deal to exchange some horses for the back rent owed, Peterson would have had the opportunity to take him up on it and sell the horses. But that would not have resolved the problem of 80+ horses remaining on Peterson’s land. So probably that didn’t happen.
My guess is that once Peterson filed the agister’s lien, the court process around that have taken a lot of options away, or at least made them more difficult.
The joy & pain of filing an agister’s lien or a foreclosure is that, on one hand, this situation will be resolved sooner or later. BUT a lot of options about how that is done have become more difficult. The court and the legal process are now involved. It’s a tradeoff that people who are owed a lot of money enter into as a last resort.
I’m not sure that it is complicated by the criminal matter.
They are in separate courts. The agister’s lien is a civil matter. My guess is that the lien process can work through to some kind of end point, and the criminal neglect/cruelty is still out there working through the criminal court.
Theoretically the criminal court could seize the horses away from the current owner. But guessing that the criminal court will wait to see what happens with the civil matter, as that might resolve the issue of care of the horses. Especially if the care is already being corrected.
The last thing the county wants is 86 horses in a seizure. Where would they put them? Even if they ‘seize’ by leaving them on site and providing care there, under the auspices of the county. I’m guessing that the county will do almost anything to avoid seizure.
It is hard enough for rescues to get them to act on issues that involve only one or several horses. Large seizures are a nightmare for all.
There are scenarios where the civil process could end up giving the horses back to the current owner. Meanwhile the criminal neglect/cruelty is still in process against him, so at that point, that has to move forward. Maybe the criminal court takes the horses away – but if they are already with another owner, as far as the criminal court is concerned, problem solved.
This, by the way, is a proven method of resolving criminal neglect/cruelty charges in my state. Sell the horse(s) – or give them away. As far as the court/AC is concerned, problem solved. They don’t follow up from there. (Moving the horses out of the jurisdiction has the same effect.)
I will now restrain myself from telling crazed tales of property transactions intersecting with criminal matters that have really happened, with outcomes one might not expect. Like the tenant who murdered the landlord, pretended to be him, and sold the property to a legal buyer. A buyer who decided on some landscaping and guess what turned up under the sod in the yard. (Tip to the wise: If you are going to murder your landlord and sell his property, don’t dispose of the remains on said property.) In spite of the fraud, irregularities by the title company processing the transaction, AND THE MURDER, the buyer kept the property with legal title to it. The murdered owner’s heirs had to go after the murderer/fraudster in civil court for the proceeds of the sale. The murderer is doing life in prison with no parole. I could tell more stories but will stop here thank goodness.
Similar happened with the Beth Hoskins Morgan rescue in 2010. There was not a lien, though. The horses were held by a local SPCA while the criminal case was prosecuted, Beth won them back (although I thinks she had to promise to cut the numbers by half, which she did not.) They were put into recievership in 2016, after which they were dispersed to Morgan people. My mare Lola’s breeder fostered 2 mares from this and has since found homes for them.
ETA: a friend and I discussed getting one of the older mares at the time, as she had room at her farm and I had money to pay for the mare’s care. But the Hoskins horses got new homes very quickly so we didn’t end up with a horse.
Oh great. Now it appears that no one knows (or is willing to share) where Westwind Otto is. He is NOT in the Montana herd. Trainer sent him back to Bryan for non-paymen, but it appears the shipper kept him because the shipper wasn’t paid either.
For breeding purposes, it’s good that he has stored semen (assuming someone is paying thr storage bill.)
Of course someone knows where he is. Whether a bunch of random people on a FB page are entitled to know all the details is questionable to me. That’s not a dig on you at all @quietann, but that FB page is getting a little out of hand with the wild speculation and self appointed experts trying to control the conversation.
I personally feel we have hit the phase of a social media firestorm where things are being posted on FB as “updates” because someone heard from someone’s friend who once rode a horse that so-and-so is sure something happened. It’s all getting a little too frenzied for me.
It was encouraging that last night the wonderful folks behind Moana Morgans publicly expressed their intent to successfully bid on the herd on 1/9. I hope that is the outcome of the auction, and that the horses receive their excellent care while unraveling the criminal charges.
All the rest of the rumors flying around are a little much for me. I will wait for actual updates on 1/9 to see where things go from here.
Yeah… I’m sort of backing off commenting there because it’s gone a bit wild, except for factual stuff like why the 86 horses are being auctioned as one lot (there’s one bill to pay, and they’re livestock, same as cows.)
But the reports from people who have actually seen the horses are really not good. The comment with the descriptions of 4 unhandlable, aged horses is heartbreaking. It’s in a comment somewhere.
Exactly…he was very difficult to do business with. We tried to buy a horse a couple of years ago and finally gave up because he was not responding to requests to see horses.
Latest update per Madison County Sheriff’s Office is that the lien has been paid and the sale scheduled for tomorrow is cancelled. The horses remain under the seizure order per the criminal case.
Not a surprise, given all the FB postings about efforts to pay up the lien. But the saga of these horses is far from over.
FB says the humane society is still caring for them. And as mentioned here, it seems that owner Bryan Blatt is in a serious medical condition due to stroke and not able to do much about anything – according to FB.
Making an assumption that, whoever paid off the lien, clearing it means that ownership nominally reverts to the original owner Bryan Blatt. However, because of the seizure by the county, he will not actually have control and full ownership.
If the neglect/abuse charge is adjudicated in Blatt’s favor - that is, not guilty - I think ownership goes back to him. But it seems that people don’t think that’s a possibility.
So the seizure remains, based on the document posted from the county sheriff above. Noting that the document isn’t dated. Documents should always have dates. It matters later.
Did not find specific information on what happens now to the seized animals. Does the court have to make a ruling of guilt or innocence before the fate of the horses is known?
In some states, because of the cost of care and the time before a trial and conviction, it can be possible for the county to sell the animals before the owner is convicted or found not guilty of neglect and/or abuse. Is the humane association carrying the costs? Or is the county footing the bill, while the humane association does the physical work?
In any case … whoever paid off the lien, I’m not sure of their intended strategy. The horses may still be headed for auction by the county, at some currently unknown date. If the humane association is paying the costs, maybe that buys the herd more time? The proceeds of a seizure auction are likely to first go to the county to reimburse their costs. The remainders might go to court costs, fines, fees, etc., maybe something to the owner … don’t know, just speculating.
Are they may be anticipating a sale by individual horses, not by one lot of 86 horses? That very much changes the picture of how many people may be able to purchase a horse.
Below is a different case, different county, same state … 38 horses (in very poor condition) were auctioned by the county. A rescue chased up rescue-buyers to keep them out of the hands of kill buyers.
Found the following unofficial synopsis of Montana’s cruelty/neglect seizure laws. I could not find what happens to the livestock after the seizure.
Montana’s animal cruelty and neglect laws include:
Cruelty to animals A misdemeanor that can lead to a fine of up to $1,000 or a year in jail, or both. It can also include the requirement to pay for veterinary care and to forfeit the animal to the county. [/floatl]
Aggravated cruelty to animals A felony that can lead to a fine of up to $5,000 or five years in jail, or both. [/floatl]
Animal seizure A seized animal may be euthanized if a veterinarian determines it is too injured or diseased to recover. If the owner is found not guilty, they are entitled to the animal’s fair market value.
Neglect A misdemeanor that can occur if an animal is not provided with basic needs like food, water, and shelter. If the neglect involves 10 or more animals, it can be charged as a felony.
Was it a sheriff’s sale? That info is public record. A lot of properties listed for a sheriff’s sale are never auctioned off because someone comes up with the funds. I’ve seen houses listed on as a sheriff’s sale because the owner didn’t pay a water/sewer bill totaling a few hundred $.
No. There was no ‘sale’. The only possible legal sale was auction. Payment of the lien cancelled the auction. Cancelled the sale by auction. Instead, ownership reverted back to the original owner (ignoring the sheriff’s seizure discussed below).
The bill was way past due. The bill was the thing that backed the lien. Someone paid the bill, to Peterson, the person who issued the invoice(s), to who the money was owed, and who filed the lien against the whole herd of 86 horses.
That is NOT a sale. It IS a bill payment. A payment of the invoice(s) that are way past due (with whatever late payment charges that also accrued included in the total), thus settling/clearing the lien.
No change of ownership. Owner was brought up to date on what he owned on that bill (only). Other bills may be outstanding, but they haven’t filed any liens.
That’s the point I made above. Paying this outstanding lien did NOT create a change of ownership. In fact, it cleared the rightful claim (title) to the herd back to the owner Blatt.
The cloud on ownership now is from the sheriff’s seizure. Technically this was/is the primary layer in claims against ownership. So Blatt doesn’t legally have full ownership until the sheriff’s seizure is settled back to him … which may not be in the cards.
In the case of my neighbor, unfortunately the owner/resident opted to end his life. He had a brother who probably inherited the property and paid the lien and sold the house. I do no know how much was owed nor why the owner did not ask for help. No one in the neighborhood - not even my next door neighbor that had been good friends with him for over 30 years - knew this issue was there.
